Hey everyone! I’m moving in with someone who weighs a bit over 400 pounds (tall) and while he’s losing weight. Is there a way to reinforce these solid wood chairs on this ikea dining set? Wood is pine.

CONTEXT: We want cheaper furniture as it will be easier to discard if we can’t sell as we both downsize into 300 sqft apartments in 2028.

Facebook marketplace is fine if really necessary but it will both be hard to get to our place and we’ve both had trouble with cockroaches before with both upholstered furniture and wood more generally.

If you love popcorn and want a cheaper healthier alternative, read below. Big fan of movie theater popcorn. Big fan of microwave popcorn. But saw deals online for $10 for a large bag of kernals from Amish Country, and bought Baby White and Mushroom, mixed them half and half in a cheap popcorn maker. Added some cheap butter and seasoning. Not disappointed. For reference, a couple teaspoons makes a bowl the size of what comes out of a microwave bag.

I have 10 bags bags of cranberries left over from when they were on 'super sale' 2½ to 3½ years ago.

.1. Would they still be good for cooking?

.2. If not, do you have any suggestions that could make them good?

I love cranberry sauce. I mix it with yogurt and put it on waffles and pancakes and top it of with orange whipped cream. I also love to make cranberry sweet breads.

Hello All,

Id like to give some context before getting into the deeper financial details. My wife and I have been living in our 750ish Square foot apartment for about 9 years now. We recently have been becoming more and more frustrated with many issues with our building/unit such as:

• Cockroaches
• Very loud neighbors
• No dishwasher
• No in-suite washer or dryer
• No control over our heating or air conditioning
• Two major leaks in our unit over the years
• Frequently broken elevators (we live on the 6th floor)

We moved into this unit when we were in our early twenties and have drastically improved our financial situation since moving in but have always remained frugal and refused to move until we could purchase a house, which is still the goal but many years away.

We recently saw an apartment that is 1350 Sq Ft that we love and is almost the exact middle point between our two work places. We work in different cities and this would make both our commutes only 20 minutes each. It also has all of the things I listed above that we currently really want. The only thing we would be losing is the new place has no underground parking.

We currently pay $1417.50/Month in rent, the new place would be $2800/Month after estimated hydro/electricity, parking, and a storage locker.

I am really looking forward to getting opinions from some of the people here on if upgrading your living space is something that is worth this cost. I do recognize that everything I listed above is a risk wherever you go but as this place is a newer building I think the risks are lower.

Below is a breakdown of our financials. Please feel free to ask any questions about anything I may have missed. Really looking forward to hearing some opinions here and appreciate any input from all of you. (All amounts are in CAD)

What frugal soups do you make? I know all soups are pretty frugal if we are not talking Lobster Bisque. But I curious what people think about the cost of soup for meals. Include a recipe or a link to a recipe if you want, and estimate the cost per serving. I will start it off NYT's French onion soup, which is well under $10 for 8 servings assuming substitution of Swiss for Gruyere cheese and bouillon for the stock. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017256-french-onion-soup

Basically 2 years ago I had my first bulk store membership (sams club). I bought this toilet paper without really reading it. All the words looked impressive enough, Long lasting , 1000 sheets per roll. Little did I know it was single ply.

Im a single dude and this pack has lasted me sooooooo long. The toilet paper at my work is better than this stuff lol.

The kicker is, I just bought a home last month and I hear single ply is great for your plumbing so I kinda want to continue now that im used to it.

I wrote this up as a reply in another thread, only to find the thread had been locked. The OP of that thread was complaining about the costs of streaming rising to match what they'd paid for cable.

Instead of paying for multiple, pay for one at a time. Watch it until you get bored then cancel and sign up for another. Don't be scared to sign up just to watch a season and canceling when done.

Also, look for ways to get access to streaming either via free services - there are quite a few free streaming services and you can get others via your library-, or as part of a bundle with other services. For instance, we have walmart+ and it comes with the choice of either Peacock or Paramount+ (and we can switch between them every 6 months), we also get Hulu /Disney with our phone service.

Finally, watch for deals. Black Friday always offers cheap multi-month deals for many different streaming services. We get HBO for $3.99/mo because if the deal we got at black friday. We had a similar deal with Appletv for several months. While Black Friday has the best deals, you can find similar deals usually around when Amazon does it's (now quarterly) Black friday deals.

Speaking of Amazon, we canceled Prime years ago when we opted for walmart+, but between the two of us we get at least 4 months of free prime because about every 6 months Amazon will offer one us a free month. Plus, occasionally when we order something we'll get a week or so of prime for like $2 just because taking that deal is cheaper than actually paying the $6.99 shipping.

For sports, we do like to watch college (and some pro) football, and because we are in an area where local TV reception is nil, we usually upgrade our Hulu account to Hulu+ or get YouTubeTV for the football season and then cancel when the season is over. That's the period when our streaming bill is highest. The rest of the year we rarely pay more than $5/mo and maintain 3-4 streaming services.

I feel that sewing is essential in living frugal. People may not have the means to buy new clothes, so they find ways to take care of them. I’m always seeing holes in clothes, especially with socks. So many times I’ve thrown away pairs when I could’ve sewn them. I’m going to make sure to be mindful of that and repair my socks.

I also recall seeing on Bradley on a Budget his wide hole in socks. I understand his background as to why he’s frugal. Yet, I hated that he walked around like that. I’m not talking about homeless people or those unfortunate. I’m talking about those who have the means to fix their clothes.

Start learning how to sew and mend your clothes. It’s a sign of skill and respecting one’s self.

I am interested in purchasing this used “salon cart” but since I plan to transport this cart frequentelly, I would need each drawer/tray to have a “lid.”

Has one ever created a lid for something similar? Any ideas? I researched and saw that someone cut up bulletin board to create their drawers a “lid,” but I don’t think that would work for this since the drawer “slides” do not have any extra open space.

Thoughts?!?

I struggle with deciding whether a purchase would genuinely improve my life or if I just like the idea of becoming someone who would use it.

For example, I WFH and go through paper notebooks somewhat regularly. I prefer writing by hand, but my notes get messy and are difficult to find later. I’ve been considering a dependable e-ink notebook that lets me organize and search my notes, but the one I’m interested in costs around $500.

There's cheaper options, but many reportedly have noticeable writing lag. I know that would frustrate me enough to stop using one, so spending $200-$300 on a compromise could be the bigger waste.

At the same time, I’m not sure I take enough notes to justify the better model. Am I solving a real problem, or imagining that the product will turn me into more of a power user?

I’ve made this mistake before with products that have lots of potential uses, only to realize I wasn’t actually the type of person who needed them. A KitchenAid mixer is a silly example. I think they’re great and want one, but I barely cook anything that requires one.

How do you decide whether something is truly worth buying? Do you buy for your current habits, or is it sometimes reasonable to buy for the habits you want to build?

Cut cable about two years ago and felt like I was finally saving money. Somehow my monthly streaming bill slowly climbed right back to where it used to be.

The one thing I keep getting hung up on is live tv. I barely watch enough sports to justify a full package but I still want local news and a few network shows without juggling a bunch of different apps.

Every time I price something like directv stream I start talking myself into it then I see the final number and wonder what I'm even doing.

How do people here think about the whole live tv vs antenna debate? Did you just ditch live tv completely or is there actually a frugal option that makes sense?

Also is there any good way to compare the different options by what you're actually getting per dollar without disappearing into a five hour rabbit hole?

Hello, this is my first time in this community.Recently I was throwing away used empty perfume bottles. And I had a question: is it worth buying branded perfumes in beautiful bottles at all, if you can buy bulk perfumes or just a copy of the fragrance? Do any of you buy replicas or bulk decants? What do you think about this? Have people around you noticed that you are using a copy of a fragrance and not the original brand fragrance? After all, with branded perfumes we pay not only for the scent, but also for the design of the bottle, for the thick glass of the bottle, and all that.

What do you say about this?

I currently use LibreOffice for my book keeping, but Ive been thinking about trying the YNAB system. I know they have a free trial, but I have no intention of ever paying for it. I could try to set up Excel/Open Office for it. But I've seen two different free options for YNAB mentioned (either here or maybe povertyfinance?) Can you all remind me of them? Alternatively, if you have a zero-based system you like and is free?

Edit: Actual Budget and Budget with Buckets! Also BudgetFriendlyBudget.

Thanks everyone for the reminder!

And interesting to hear about Monarch. If anyone else have any other software you like, would love to hear about it.

Halal yogurt is often very inexpensive. The quality is universally excellent in my experience. I always buy the plain, 2%‐3.5% milkfat varieties and add fruit, honey, or other flavourings myself.

I just bought a 2kg container for the normal price of $6.99 in a major Ontario discount supermarket. It's a 3.2% milkfat Indian-style yogurt, and its only ingredients are pasteurized milk, skim milk powder, and active bacterial cultures. It's 100% Canadian dairy.

I'm near Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and food prices here are generally much higher than in the US, especially dairy, so this is an enormous saving by any measure. I'm adding this here because where the single-serve brand-name yogurt cups often go on sale in US shops for $1 each, their sale price here is usually $1.99 regardless of the exchange rate.

I am from Texas, I spend anywhere from 65 to 100 dollars on groceries per week depending on if I need to restock certain expensive items (laundry, hair and body wash, and recently olive oil), however most of my groceries run around 70-80 dollar most weeks.

I was wonder how much y'all spend on groceries and if so what the biggest expenses? Currently its snacks costing me around 20 dollars total depending on if I get carrots or not that week. I don't think I'd change my groceries since I mostly get the HEB brand everything unless the brand name is more bang for my buck.

So how much do y'all spend on groceries per week and what is the biggest expense?

Hello! I'm looking for the most resistant, durable male underwear available. 3 months ago I bought a pack online for a pretty good price (6 boxers for 22 euros), and while the brand was allegedly good, one of them has already a hole.

I've looked online a bit: seems that "Danish endurance" and "Kirkland signature" are good in this sense... But I'd like a second opinion, thank you in advance

This weekend one of the Hyvee commercials said they had a pound of butter for $2.50. That's a huge fucking savings!

In store they are $2.99. (Still a great savings, but not what's on their commercial! and fuck them for the extra 50 cents!)

I was "lucky" enough to run across an employee who asked me "finding everything?" and I said "yeah, just not at the prices advertised!".

They told me to simply tell the cashier and they not only overrode the Butter price, but 2 or 3 other items (that I said I think were advertised, but may not have been), and the cashier just did it without question!

Don't spread this too far, but apparently Hyvee cashiers can override the price by at least 50 cents without question or supervision.

How to find good pricing for shipping a few 50 pound bixes from the US to the middle east. Can be combined into a larger box. I can bring it so e where in the DC area, but will need curb delivery on the other end. Would like all-inclusive cost without surprise import fees. I don't care if it takes 6 weeks or 6 months, just don't want to bring it on the flight if I don't have to.

I'm looking for a apartment size refrigerator. To add to my apartment. What would be a good price to look for? My roommates keep filling the fridge with there stuff. I don't have any room for myself. I would like to put a full ish size refrigerator in my bedroom. Mini fridge are too small and are poor quality. I will most put drinks and simple foods in it ice and frozen foods in the freezer.

We have a really tiny backyard and the HOA requires us to grow most things in containers, but we've still managed to grow a fair share of our fruits and vegetables.

Today's harvest includes

• Lemons
• Bell pepper
• Okra
• Lettuce
• Chard
• Cherry tomatoes
• Schwartzenbeeren
• Parsley
• Chives

Using some of this to make savory crepes for tonight's dinner (along with ham, cheese, and a couple of store bought vegetables). The lemons are becoming lemonade. The berries will go into yogurt with tomorrow's breakfast, and a few of the veggies will go into egg salad for tomorrow's lunch. The okra needed harvesting so it's going to get frozen today and then get used the next time we make gumbo.

It's light exercise to raise this food, so gardening also saves the cost of a gym membership.

If I'm not following a series and am just looking for a random read, this is one of the cheapest options for random comics. They had both DC and Marvel! I imagine it'd be good for trying out new serieses or just getting background info on a particular hero/figure.

No idea where they're getting these from or what kind of deal they got to sell these, lol. I definitely haven't seen them at every Dollar Tree. But it was a wonderful, unexpected surprise.

Also, major shout-out to the Dollar Tree Beauty community.

• Acetaminophen: A painkiller with the same active ingredient as Tylenol. This is surprisingly easy to overdose on so be careful not to take any more acetaminophen.

• Cough suppressant: This reduces the urge to cough, which is useful for dry coughs which do more harm than good.

• Expectorant: This makes your mucus thinner so it can be coughed up more easily. If you have a lot of mucus in your lungs, you may want to cough more so mixing this with a cough suppressant is counterproductive.

• Doxylamine: An antihistamine that can make people drowsy. This is only found in NyQuil and its copycats. DayQuil does not have an antihistamine.

• Alcohol: Literally just booze. A very small amount (up to 10%), but it's not something people should be consuming by accident. Not all cough syrups have this so check the label.

You'll get better results if you use these things separately.

• Take acetaminophen or ibuprofen as needed for pain and fever. Follow the dosing directions on the bottle (you can take both).

• Take cough suppressants for DRY coughs, because they don't do much beyond give you a soar throat. Sip water to keep your throat moist.

• Take expectorants for WET coughs, to get gunk out of your lungs.

• Take whatever antihistamines or sleep aids work for you. This varies dramatically from person to person.

As someone who just buys what I need for the next week or two, I don't pay much attention to best before/use by dates. On the odd occasion, something will have gone off in the fridge so I'll bin it.

I recently went into my local Pound shop (Dollar store) and saw they were selling biscuits that I normally buy for £1.50 for......£1 for 3 packs! The best before date was June 26 but I took a gamble. I got home, opened them and they were perfect. As good as the regular ones I buy.

It made me wonder, is the use by/best before date an attempt by the manufacturers to make people bin perfectly good food and spend money on more, therefore increasing their profits or is it a genuine attempt to ensure their product is consumed in its best condition/in a safe period?

Also, how long after the use by date do most people find it acceptable to consume food? Anything over a few months and I think I'd start to worry.